• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.1
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• pp.103-123
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• 2017

This article examines the existing literature on the intersection of care and migration in Europe and the potential contributions of the Korean case. The paper reviews the three bodies of research: care, migration and their intersections. When defined as social reproductive labour, the concept of care not only captures individual/family level of experiences but it can also be an effective tool to analyse the diversity of the welfare state and the path of its evolution. Furthermore, in the context of globalisation and international migration, the concept of care can help overcome so-called 'the methodological nationalism' in the welfare state research. Accumulated evidence shows that only by applying a transnational perspective to the relationship between such social realities as class, gender and race, can we properly examine the dynamics of care distribution. Existing care-migration nexus research has found a widely observed trend of the 'migrantisation of care' in European welfare states; however, the actual modality of care-migration intersection varies reflecting historical and institutional contexts. This is why care-migration nexus research must go beyond the well-known welfare regime types. The Korean case can expand the geographical coverage and theoretical applicability of the intersection research by including a new welfare state regime type (productivist or developmental welfare states) and new patterns of migration (co-ethnic migration and marriage migration) which were rarely dealt with in this scholarship.